Finance Business Partner

Overview

St Paul’s Cathedral is seeking a Finance Business Partner, a key role in the Finance Department, deputising for the Head of Finance as well as working directly and independently with senior leaders across the organisation to support decision making. Working closely with both the Director of Corporate Services and Head of Finance they will play an important role in ensuring that the Cathedral is making the very best use of its funds whilst maintaining and developing a strong financial control framework.

Introduction

This is a key role in the Finance Department, deputising for the Head of Finance as well as working directly and independently with senior leaders across the organisation to support decision-making. Working closely with both the Director of Corporate Services and Head of Finance they will play an important role in ensuring that SPC is making the very best use of its funds whilst maintaining and developing a strong financial control framework.

Focusing on income generation and capital projects which together support the preservation and maintenance of the Cathedral, this post will provide insightful financial reports and in depth analysis to enable high-quality decision-making.

This role also takes responsibility for the provision of financial information on and for the Cathedral’s associated Trusts, from reports to the Board and the Development Team, through to the preparation of the draft statutory accounts as well as acting as the key contact for these external audits. 

This role is highly customer focused and the incumbent will need to be able to build strong relationships at all levels across the organisation. 

Main Responsibilities

1. Financial and management accounting for the Cathedral’s associated organisations: Enterprises, Friends, Foundation, COLET, Garfield Weston, including:
    
   1. recording of all investment transactions on a monthly basis;
   2. maintaining the Nominal Ledger, including all balance sheet reconciliations on a monthly basis;
   3. preparing of quarterly financial reports for Trustee meetings;
   4. attendance at Trustee meetings and delivering finance reports;
   5. preparing the annual report and financial statements in line with Charities SORP and other legislation as applicable, with minimal oversight from the Head of Finance;
   6. managing the external audit, dealing with any queries and finalisation of the annual audit;
   7. acting as company secretary, filing the accounts with relevant bodies and any other returns as required;
   8. preparing payments for authorisation by the trustees as required;
   9. liaising with the fund managers and banks of the associated organisations on behalf of the trustees;
   10. liaising with the nominated bank on behalf of the Trustees to ensure mandates are up-to-date; and
   11. liaising with the Global Partnerships Team to ensure all donations received by the associated organisations are correctly recorded in line with the Donor Income recognition Policy.
        
2. Supporting the Director of Corporate Services in the financial reporting to the St Paul’s Cathedral Fabric & Finance Committee, through:
   1. maintaining an accurate record of the finances of all the Fabric projects (agreed budget, any revisions, over and underspends, funds raised towards these projects, historic and current year spend) within the Cathedral’s properties, including the main Cathedral site itself, for presentation to the members of the Committee;
   2. liaising with the Quantity Surveyors to ensure that all stages of each project, in accordance with RIBA stages are captured accurately;
   3. with regard to Fabric projects, monitoring all fabric projects in relation to agreed budgets and providing advice to the authorisers of the expenditure. As part of this process, reconcile invoices to certified spend;
   4. liaising with Fundraising to ensure that funds raised for each project are reflected and funding gaps accurately captured; and
   5. ensuring all information is correctly captured within the Cathedral’s finance systems so that they can be reported on accurately for management and statutory purposes.

1. Supporting multiple income generating departments of the Cathedral through:
   1. the delivery of significant improvement in financial reporting on business performance, improving understanding of income and expenditure and promoting cost discipline and transparency;
   2. the provision of strategic information and business analysis; production of budgets, re-forecasts and monthly management accounts;
   3. supporting ad hoc analysis, project work and strategic decision support, e.g. analysing the potential visitor and income impact of varying factors, donation and gift aid conversion rates on admission tickets, pricing strategy reviews for both admissions and membership, reviewing business cases etc;
   4. the provision of financial and business information in order to enable the Development Team to make accurate decisions regarding the fundraising strategy;
   5. the provision of support in the development and monitoring of KPI's and financial targets;
   6. the delivery of meaningful insights into business performance to key stakeholders to support decision by the relevant Directors; and
   7. the provision of excellent business partnership and customer service to all managers.
       
2. Grant management
   1. Monitoring expenditure against grants awarded, working with budget holders to ensure expenditure is on track;
   2. Preparing grant claims for external funders, including the Listed Places of Worship Scheme, the Foundation and Friends, and dealing with queries on these as they occur; and
   3. Assisting the Development Team with the preparation of budget for grant proposals.

The Ideal Candidate

Ideally, qualified (ACA, ACCA, or CIMA) or part qualified with relevant experience in a similar role.

The other requirements are as follows:

Essential

• Knowledge of charity SORP accounting;
• Experience of varying budgeting techniques and the ability to gain buy in for  process and proposals;
• Experience in the preparation of management accounts and the development of KPI’s in order to support timely and effective decision making;
• Strong organisational skills;
• Have worked with project teams, with a wide range of funding sources, collating relevant information into an easily digestible format;
• Strong Excel skills;
• An excellent communicator with a positive, can do attitude. Highly perceptive with good inter-personal skills in order to liaise and gain the buy in of colleagues across the Cathedral, including senior budget holders, and suppliers;
• Experience of team management, as this role will deputise for the Head of Finance as required; and
• Excellent  analytical skills and the ability to interpret complex financial data for non-finance specialists
• Confident to put forward new ideas to improve existing processes

Desirable

• An understanding of partial recovery for VAT and corporation tax
• Knowledge of Access Dimensions and MS Access

The successful candidate will be in sympathy with, and in their work support, the Christian aims and mission of St Paul’s Cathedral.

Applicants must have the right to work in the UK.

About us

Introduction to working at St Paul’s Cathedral

St Paul’s draws together a very diverse set of activities, projections and aspirations.  It is the Cathedral of the Diocese of London and the seat of its Bishop, a national church and an international spiritual focus, a space for worship and holiness, a place of debate and challenge, an icon of resilience in the face of adversity, an architectural heritage centre, a partner in the City of London, and a commercial enterprise.  In addition to holding four services every day (five on Sundays), St Paul’s is open for sight-seeing six days a week, and in 2018 welcomed over 850,000 paying visitors.

Our Mission Statement

St Paul’s Cathedral seeks to enable people in all their diversity to encounter the transforming presence of God in Jesus Christ.

Our Vision

• St Paul’s is seen primarily as a living Christian Church.
• We will be a centre for welcome, worship and learning, and though our care and imagination, will inspire successive generations to engage with the richness of the Christian faith and its heritage.
• Working with the Bishop and Diocese of London and the wider Church, we will be a spiritual focus for people across London, the nation and a broader international audience.
• Our work will promote dignity and justice for everyone.

Our Values

Welcoming – we all offer a warm inclusive welcome to everyone: our colleagues, volunteers and each one of our visitors.

Responsible –We are people of integrity, each responsible for part of the whole of the Cathedral’s work, looking after the Cathedral for the next generation.

Engaging – we seek to engage everyone in our mission, at the Cathedral, within London and across the World.   

Nourishing – As a community we work together in a learning environment, aiming for the highest possible standards in everything we do whilst acknowledging that we cannot do everything.